Ties That Bind
by Alchemine
Summary: A little girl. An old man. A lonely mountainside. And a very irritable owl. If you've ever wondered how Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall met, here's your chance to find out. First part of a four-part series. Complete.
1. The Owl's Message

**Author's Note**: This story is the first part of a four-part series. The other three parts are (in order): "June Week," "Monster In Training" and "Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc." You don't have to read this one first to read "June Week," but it would help.

**Spoilers**: None in this chapter. I'll add warnings as needed later.

**Rating**: PG-13

**Disclaimer**: Everything associated with the Harry Potter universe belongs to J.K. Rowling and her publishers. Not me.

**Chapter I**: The Owl's Message 

The owl came gliding in just before dusk, a small, pale shape against a darkening purple sky. Though it had set out early in the morning, it had gotten lost for several hours along the way. As a result, the journey had taken nearly twice as long as planned. 

Owls almost never strayed off course, and this one felt very cross and embarrassed about its little detour. In the owl's defense, the house it had come to was literally in the middle of nowhere – halfway up the side of a mountain, with the nearest village more than a mile below. 

_What does the old man think I am, an eagle?_ the owl thought irritably as it banked and circled in preparation for landing. _It's all very well for him, sitting there in the castle. I'm the one flying around with sore wings and a horrid heavy letter tied to my leg. Not to mention that the air is so thin I can't breathe properly._ It made a mental note to find and eat a mouse while it was here, just so it could cough up the bones and fur on the man's desk when it returned.

Gazing keenly down at the house, the owl spied a window glowing with candlelight, and through it, the person it had come to see. She was sitting in an armchair, hunched over a large vellum book. The owl folded its wings and swooped in.

"Oh!" said its target in surprise. "You have a letter for me?"

_No, it's a fruit basket. Of course it's a letter, silly girl!_ thought the owl, holding its leg out so she could remove the envelope. She did, and stroked the owl absentmindedly while she read the return address.

"Damn," she said. "I'd forgotten about this."

_Forget whatever else you want – just remember to keep stroking me._ The owl half-closed its eyes with pleasure and spread its wings a bit, hoping she would scratch underneath them. But now she was busy tearing open the envelope and holding the letter close to her face.

"Albus Dumbledore, Deputy Headmaster," she read aloud. "I suppose I'll have to answer him. Let's see, where did I put that quill?" Giving the owl a final pat, she went to a battered mahogany desk on the other side of the room and began to rummage around. She found her quill and stopped to think for a minute before writing. 

Waiting for the reply was part of the owl's job. It settled itself with a rustle of feathers and watched her curiously. She scribbled the first few lines quickly enough, but then took another piece of parchment out of a drawer and seemed to be copying something from it. 

"Looks close enough to me. What do you think, owl?" She held up the parchment, its ink still glistening wet, so that the owl could see. 

_Owls can't read, you ninny_, the owl thought. It made a sort of noncommittal hooting sound, and the girl was satisfied.

"It'll do," she said. "I know he and Dad used to be friends, but they haven't written to each other in years. So he's not likely to have anything around to compare it to. And anyway, he's probably too busy to pay much attention."

If the owl could have shrugged, it would have. The girl was nice enough, and she certainly had a gentle touch with feathers, but she talked too much.

When the ink was dry, the girl folded the parchment and stuffed it back into the envelope.

"Do you need anything before you take this back?" she asked, approaching the owl again. "I haven't any owl treats, but I'm sure I could find something in the kitchen for you to eat. Or you could just stay here and rest for a while. I wouldn't mind the company."

Tempting though this offer was, the owl knew it had to get underway. It held out its leg again, and the girl sighed.

"All right, then." She reattached the envelope. "Off you go. Have a safe flight." With a powerful downsweep of its wings, the owl launched itself through the window and began climbing toward the now-black sky. It caught a final glimpse of the house as it wheeled around. The girl was still standing at the window, watching it go with a rather wistful expression on her face.

_What did she write to the old man that made her so sad?_ the owl wondered briefly. Then it pushed the thought away and concentrated on finding its bearings. If it got lost again, there would be no end to the jokes in the Owlery.


	2. Enter Dumbledore

**Disclaimer**: The usual.

**Chapter II**: Enter Dumbledore 

_Dear Albus,_

_Thank you for your letter. However, Minerva will not be attending Hogwarts this year. _

_Best wishes,_

_Malcolm K. McGonagall_

Dumbledore blinked behind his half-moon glasses, and scanned the message again to be sure he'd read it right the first time. Now that was odd. Malcolm deciding not to send his daughter to Hogwarts? It was as if he'd casually announced that he'd decided not to wear clothes anymore, or that he would only be speaking backward from now on.

True, Malcolm had grown disillusioned with Hogwarts, and academic life in general, during the last few years he'd taught there. That was why, when he'd suddenly met and married a much younger woman, he'd retired to a remote house in the Highlands, where he could enjoy his late-life relationship and tinker with his potions, unencumbered by teaching duties or bureaucratic policies. But Dumbledore knew that he doted on Minerva, who was his only child, and wanted her to have the best leg up on life. That meant a proper education, and that, in turn, meant Hogwarts. He'd said as much the last time Dumbledore had seen him, which had been at his wife's funeral nearly seven years ago.

_"Malcolm, I'm so sorry for your loss."_

"Thank you, Albus."

_Malcolm looked dreadful with his eyes bloodshot and his robes askew. He was holding Minerva, a sober-faced little girl of four or five. She had hair as black as her father's had been once. It was woven into two neat plaits tied with black velvet ribbons. Her thumb was in her mouth, and her head rested on her father's shoulder. Dumbledore smiled at her kindly. She didn't respond._

_"She misses her mother," Malcolm said, looking helplessly at Dumbledore. _

_"It's only natural," Dumbledore said._

_"I don't know how we'll get along, just the two of us." Malcolm put Minerva down, but she clung to his leg, looking up at Dumbledore as if she suspected he was a convicted child-stealer. "I'll do my best for her, though. Until she's old enough to go to school. You'll take care of her for me then, won't you, Albus?"_

_"Of course I will."_

Dumbledore had gradually lost touch with Malcolm after that -- he was busy, having taken on the post of Deputy Headmaster in addition to his regular duties as Transfiguration professor. And Malcolm, for his part, seemed to have withdrawn entirely from the world. But Dumbledore hadn't forgotten Malcolm, or his own promise, and had been looking forward to teaching Minerva in the coming year. Except it now seemed that he wasn't going to get the chance.

He looked over at Sugar, who was sitting on top of a stack of books and preening himself. 

"I don't suppose Malcolm told you what he was thinking when he wrote this?" he asked.

_Who's Malcolm? I didn't see any Malcolm, just a girl. She wanted to feed me. You could take a lesson from her_, thought the owl.

"Oh well," said Dumbledore, "it's not as if you could tell me anyway." He opened his desk drawer, took out an owl treat and laid it down at Sugar's feet. Then he sat back in his chair, thinking. It had really been too long since he'd talked to Malcolm. In fact, as he pictured Malcolm's house, perched all alone on the side of that Godforsaken mountain, he felt a bit guilty that he hadn't tried harder to keep up their friendship.

Maybe he should write back again, just to make sure everything was all right. Or no -- maybe he should visit. If Malcolm were having some sort of troubles that were preventing him from sending Minerva to school, he very likely wouldn't admit to them in a letter, even if pressed.

Glancing at the antique water clock on his mantelpiece, Dumbledore saw that it was half past two. He had plenty of work to do, with the start of the term only three weeks away, but surely he could spare a few hours to catch up with an old friend. There was no time like the present.

"Keep an eye on things for me, will you, Sugar?" he asked.

The owl rustled irritably. _Oh, certainly. Carry your letters ... mind your office ... you'll be wanting me to mend your robes for you next. _

"Thank you," Dumbledore said, oblivious to Sugar's attitude problem. He put on his pointed hat, fished out an extra owl treat, tossed it onto the desk, and left.


	3. Go Tell It On The Mountain

**Disclaimer**: The usual.

**Chapter III**: Go Tell It On The Mountain 

Nothing was moving outside the McGonagall house. Very little usually did. The people from the village below stayed away -- they thought their reclusive neighbors were hopelessly odd, and the bubbling sounds and noxious odors that emanated from the house were just unpleasant. So when Dumbledore appeared out of thin air, he was the most exciting thing on the scene.

He strode up the front path, already smiling in anticipation at seeing Malcolm again. _I should have done this long ago. _

At the entrance, he made to knock, and was puzzled to find the door slightly ajar. He pushed it open further and took a tentative step inside. 

The house was more or less as he remembered it -- piles of parchment and books stacked haphazardly on the floor, magical instruments sprouting at random from shelves, broken quills and dried ink splashes everywhere. Malcolm had always embraced the stereotype of the messy, absentminded scholar, and had not bothered to adjust his lifestyle when he added "family man" to his job description.

Dumbledore frowned suddenly. Something didn't seem right. There was a bit too much dust on the books, a strange stillness in the air. And where was Malcolm, anyway? He should have been here by now to shout at Dumbledore for arriving unannounced.

Just as Dumbledore was about to call his friend's name, he heard footsteps in the adjoining room and sighed with relief. Perhaps Malcolm had been at a delicate part of an experiment and needed to finish it before coming out to see who was visiting him.

But it wasn't Malcolm who came through the door. It was a young girl in a short blue summer dress. Her black hair was loose and tangled on her shoulders, and she was engaged in eating an extremely large chunk of bread and jam. Though she was much older than the last time Dumbledore had seen her, he recognized her instantly.

"Hello, Minerva," he said. "Where's your father?"

Minerva leapt back, startled, and dropped her bread on the flagstones. She chewed frantically to get rid of the bite that was still in her mouth, eyes fixed on Dumbledore all the while. He expected her to ask what he was doing there. When she could finally speak, however, her first words were "Get out of my house!"

"I beg your pardon?" Dumbledore said politely.

"I said get out!" Minerva repeated. She took a step forward, raising small, furious fists in an attempt at intimidation. 

Dumbledore wasn't quite sure how to respond to this, but decided to try reason and kindness first. "Don't you know who I am, my dear?" 

"No, and I don't care," she said. "You haven't been invited. You're not wanted. Now go." Beneath the defiance, Dumbledore heard a note of terror in her voice, and he began to feel the tingle of uncontrolled magic building up in the air around him like a brewing electrical storm. 

"Wait," he said quickly. "I'm Albus Dumbledore, Deputy Headmaster at Hogwarts. I sent your acceptance letter, remember? I'm your father's friend. You and I met when your mother -- when she passed away."

His words seemed to have some effect -- at least, the crackling sensation on his skin eased. 

She peered at him myopically and said "Professor Dumbledore? But we -- we wrote to you and said I couldn't come."

"I know," said Dumbledore, "and frankly, I was very surprised to hear it. Your father's been planning to send you to Hogwarts since before you were born. So I thought I'd just pop around and ask what changed his mind. Do you suppose I might see him?"

Minerva, who had been starting to relax a bit, went stiff again at this. "He's away in the village," she said, looking everywhere in the room but at Dumbledore.

"Ah. Well, since I've come this far, perhaps I'll sit and wait a while for him to come back. You wouldn't mind, would you?"

Her expression screamed _I would mind very much!_ But with an obvious effort, she composed herself and said "Of course not. Come on in."

As he followed her through the cluttered rooms, Dumbledore noticed something else that rang his inner alarm bells: Malcolm's beloved briar pipe, sitting cold and disused on a sideboard. He tried to remember a time that he'd seen Malcolm without that pipe either in his mouth or within hand's reach, and couldn't. It was impossible to imagine Malcolm setting off on an excursion to the village without it.

_Maybe he's given it up for his health_, Dumbledore thought. He went into the sitting room ahead of his reluctant hostess and settled down on a large, squashy leather sofa that was so inexpertly made he wondered if Malcolm had slaughtered the cows for it himself.

Minerva perched on a chair opposite him, looking ready to break and run at any second. They regarded each other for a long while -- she with suspicion, he with puzzlement. Somewhere in the distance, a clock ticked softly.

"He might be gone a long time," she said finally, breaking the silence. "He didn't say how long he would be. Maybe you should just come back another day. Or send another owl."

"Does he leave you up here alone often?" Dumbledore asked. "That doesn't sound like him to me."

A cagey expression fluttered across her face. "Well, he -- he can't take me with him every time. I'm fine by myself, really."

Dumbledore came to the point. "All right, Minerva. I'm getting older, but I'm not senile yet. I know when someone is hiding something from me. I received a very peculiar letter regarding your enrollment at Hogwarts, and now I've come to find your house an even worse wreck than usual, your father missing, and you unable to tell me when he'll be back. Perhaps you should be honest with me now." He accompanied this speech with a stern stare that he'd perfected over six decades of teaching. 

It worked as well on Minerva as it did on his students. For a minute, she stared back at him defiantly, but then her lower lip began to tremble, and she burst into tears.

"He's outside," she said between sobs.

"There, now, that wasn't so hard," Dumbledore said. He rose and smoothed down his purple robes. "Let's go see him."


	4. Minerva In Mourning

**Disclaimer:** The usual

**Chapter IV**: Minerva In Mourning 

It had been years since Dumbledore had been truly surprised. But as he stood in the middle of the McGonagalls' vegetable garden, he had to admit it: he was completely taken aback by the thing at his feet.

It was a grave. And not a very fresh one, at that. Long grass surrounded the mound, and the marker -- a rough slab of wood -- was already beginning to look weathered. He read the inscription, which was done in neat printed letters, apparently burned in by the tip of a wand.

**MALCOM KERR MCGONAGALL**

**1801-1934**

"He died _last year_?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes, right before Christmas," Minerva said. She had knelt down and was pulling some weeds from around the marker. "He was ill for a few days. Not very badly, at least I didn't think so. And then I went in one morning to wake him and he was - he was -" 

"And – you mean to tell me you buried him yourself?"

"Someone had to," she said, looking up at Dumbledore with wet eyes. "It took me all day to dig. I don't know any spells for that. Then I got him out here and -- and covered him up. I put some things of my mother's in there with him, and some of mine too, so he wouldn't be all alone. I couldn't think what else to do."

Dumbledore took off his hat and rubbed a hand through his hair. "All right, I suppose I understand that part. But why are you still here by yourself? Why didn't you contact someone?"

"Who?" Minerva asked. "The village is all Muggle; no one there would be any help. I've never met any of my other relatives, except my granddad, and he died when I was eight. And then I thought --" She broke off, and Dumbledore prompted "Yes?"

"Well, I thought even if I found some aunt or cousin, they might not want me, and I'd be sent to an orphanage. I know all about orphanages. I read a book, a Muggle book, about a boy called Oliver who lived in one. It was dreadful. I'd rather die. So I stayed here. It _is_ my home, you know." Standing up, she brushed the dirt briskly off her knees.

"And Hogwarts?" 

"I wanted to go -- I really did - but I wouldn't be able to stay there all the time. What about the holidays? You see, it was the orphanage problem again. That's why I sent you that letter saying I wasn't coming."

"I see," Dumbledore said. "So you were intending to live all alone on a mountain until you grew up? Feeding and clothing yourself? How _have_ you been feeding yourself, by the way? You can't have been living off this vegetable patch."

"Dad kept all his money in the house," Minerva informed him. "He said he didn't care if he never saw Diagon Alley again. Some of it is Muggle money, so I take that and buy things in the village when I need them. Not too often, though. I'm always afraid of someone noticing that Dad doesn't go with me anymore and asking a lot of questions." Her expression darkened. "I hate it when people shove in where they've got no business."

"Like me?" Dumbledore inquired gently, and she put a hand to her mouth in sudden embarrassment.

"Oh, no, I didn't mean you. I can see why you came, him being your friend and all. You must be sad too."

Dumbledore sighed. "I am," he said, "but I have things to do before I can stop for grieving. We must figure out what to do about you, young Minerva."

"I don't need to have anything done about me," she said with slightly affronted pride. "I've managed just fine on my own so far."

"You appear to be an amazingly capable young lady," he agreed, "but you're still only eleven years old. I cannot leave you to fend for yourself."

"I'll be twelve in three months," Minerva said, as if that solved everything, and Dumbledore chuckled. He couldn't help liking this stubborn, self-confident girl. She was certainly different from the silent child he'd met years earlier.

"Nevertheless," he said, "now that I know your situation, I'm responsible for you. I owe it to your father. He and I were friends for many, many years, even if we'd fallen out of touch, and I know he would want me to take care of you as if you were my own daughter. And that is exactly what I'm going to do. I think I should stay here tonight - it's getting late - and I'll look through Malcolm's papers to see what sort of state his affairs were in. Then, tomorrow, we'll decide what to do next. Are we agreed?"

"But the orphanage -" she said, worried.

"I won't let you go to an orphanage," he assured her. "Your father would never approve. If I can't find a relative to care for you, I'll take you in myself."

A sudden, surprisingly lovely smile -- the first he'd seen from her -- broke across Minerva's face. 

"I'm glad you've come," she said. "I was getting lonely."

He put an arm around her thin shoulders, and they walked back to the house together.


	5. The Other Side Of The Story

If it weren't for the weather, Minerva might not have made her fateful discovery until much later. It was a week till Christmas, and every day had been getting progressively colder. That morning, she woke up at five a.m., shivering too hard to stay asleep any longer.

"_Dad_!" she called from underneath her mountain of blankets. "The heat's gone out again! Can you fix it?"

There was no answer. Probably he'd been up late with one of his projects. He hadn't been feeling well the last couple of days, but that never stopped him from working, and she knew better than to suggest he yield and go to bed. His temper made hers, fierce though it was for a girl of eleven, look like meekness by comparison. He never hit her, but he did shout. It was a good thing their nearest neighbors were more than a mile away.

"_Daaaaad_!" she yelled one more time. Still not a sound from his room. 

Resigning herself to suffering, she flung back the covers and got up. The flannel nightgown and wool socks she'd gone to bed in did nothing to keep out the chill from either the Arctic air or the frigid floor. Quickly, she threw on a dressing gown and wrapped a spare blanket around her shoulders for good measure. Then she went to see if she could fix the heat herself without disturbing the sleeping lion.

A minute or two of poking about was enough to tell her that she couldn't. They had a wall heater that her father had bought through the mail (Muggle mail, not owl post - Minerva had been allowed to lick the stamps for the letter) and enhanced with various enchantments. Unfortunately, his spells were beyond her limited abilities. She would have to fetch him out of bed. How could he sleep through cold like this, anyway?

__

Maybe he'll be happier about waking up if I feed him at the same time, she thought. Cooking was his job, not hers, but she could at least manage tea and toast. That was probably all he should be having anyway if he was ill. With that in mind, she went off to the cluttered kitchen, which was even colder than the rest of the house, made a cup of tea and two pieces of toast drowning in butter and marmalade, put everything on a tray, and carried it down the hall to his room. 

Inside, all was still and grey with early-morning light. She closed the door behind her by leaning against it and pushed some papers off the nearest chair with her foot so she could set the tray down. 

"Wake up - I've been calling you. I brought you your breakfast. And you've got to do something about the heat. It's absolutely freezing."

The large, motionless shape in the bed slept on, face turned toward the far wall, not even twitching at the sound of her voice. Strange. He wasn't usually such a heavy sleeper as all that. 

For no apparent reason, a nervous feeling began to grow in the pit of her stomach. He hadn't answered any of her yelling, and now that she was standing two feet away from him and speaking rather loudly, he still wasn't responding.

And he was quiet. So quiet. Not snoring, as he always did, or even breathing audibly.

"Dad?" she asked again tentatively. But she might as well have been talking to the breakfast tray.

_What if something's wrong with him? What if he's sicker than he's been letting on?_

Slowly, afraid of what she might be about to find, she walked around the end of the bed - and took a fast step back, mouth open in shock, when she saw his face. It was livid, and oddly stiff and slack at the same time, as if it had melted halfway and then solidified again. A small whimper escaped her.

"Dad, oh, Dad, please wake up. Please be all right," she whispered to him. "Please, please, please, please, please."

She stood there for ages, waiting for him to move or make some sort of sound, anything to prove false what she already knew was true. He never did.

He was dead.

~~~

An hour later, Minerva came out the back door of the house, wearing several layers of clothing against the cold, the heaviest cloak she owned fastened securely round her neck. She couldn't remember very much of what had happened between when she'd realized her father was dead and when she'd found herself standing fully dressed in the kitchen. But she did know that she had reached two very important decisions: she had to bury him, and she had to keep anyone else from finding out that he was gone. She supposed she must have other relatives somewhere, but hadn't a clue who they were or how to reach them. Besides, she was suspicious of what they might do with her if she did. She was not going to be a charity case, or worse, go to some horrid orphanage. This was her home, the only one she'd ever known, and here she would stay, parents or no parents.

Of course, first there was the small matter of digging a grave. The idea made her nauseous. She didn't want to throw her father into a hole in the ground, as if he were a piece of garbage that was about to go bad. He deserved better. He needed a proper coffin and funeral, like the one he had provided for her mother years before. If she could have thought of a way to give him those things without being dragged away by strangers, she would have. Since she couldn't, she wandered around their property, looking for an appropriate place to dig. Finally she settled on the vegetable garden. It was dormant now, but in the summer, he'd liked working in it, turning over the soil with the same shovel she now held clenched in her cold-numbed hands. Maybe he would be happy there.

Choosing a spot, she tapped the ground with the edge of the shovel blade to test its hardness and discovered that it was frozen solid. Well, she could do something about that. She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a wand, his wand. She'd taken it from his bedside table, carefully avoiding looking at his face again, before she'd come out here. Just holding it made her feel guilty - she'd always been forbidden to touch it unless he was supervising her.

_I'll get you your own, soon,_ he'd promised on her last birthday in October. _You're old enough, even if you won't be going to school till next year. I'll start teaching you how to really use it at home. You'll know more than any other first-year by the time you get there._

_Don't think about that. You'll cry if you do, and you can't afford to till you've finished with this_. She sniffled and bit her lip resolutely, then aimed the wand as she'd seen him do a thousand times.

"_Incendio_!" she said, and gasped in amazement and relief as flames sprang up on the ground where she was pointing. Until that moment, she hadn't been entirely sure she'd be able to make the wand, or the spell, work. She had magic, of course, had done plenty of it both by accident and on purpose in her short life, but had never really tried to channel it this way before.

It was a good thing she could, because it took several repetitions to soften the ground enough so she could get the shovel into it. Digging was another thing she'd never done much of, except for playing in the sandpit when she was younger. Like many new things, it turned out to be harder than it looked. She dug for hours while the cold winter sun climbed higher in the sky, dug until her back and arms hurt and her hands were covered with oozing blisters. Around noon, she took a break, not to eat - she had no appetite - but to wrap her hands underneath her mittens so she could bear to grip the shovel handle. The wrapping helped a bit. Still, by early afternoon, she wanted to scream each time she lifted another shovelful of dirt. 

At last, she decided that the grave was deep enough. It would have to be. She couldn't have dug any more if her own life depended on it. Climbing out, she surveyed her work - a ragged-edged hole seven feet long and perhaps four feet deep. It looked dark and ugly against the barren winter landscape that surrounded it. The sight brought fresh tears welling up, but she forced them down again. This next part was going to be even more difficult. She would need to be strong.

She went back inside the house and, fearfully, back into his bedroom. He looked a little less stiff now, a little more like himself. That made it easier to approach the bed. 

"I'm so sorry about this," she said to him. Her voice broke on the last word. She tried valiantly to get her composure back, but it was too late. Sobbing, she pulled the corners of the bottom sheet out from under the feather mattress, folded the top two over his face (that much was a relief) and tied them together. Then she grabbed the lower corners, wincing as her raw hands closed on the cloth, and pulled as hard as she could. The sheet, and the body on it, slid an inch or two toward the end of the bed, and she braced herself and pulled again. Bit by bit, she worked him onto the floor, crying all the while, and began to drag him out of the room and down the hall.

Halfway through the kitchen, she realized she was never going to make it. He was so heavy that he would have been difficult to move even if she'd had all her strength. Now, exhausted from the digging, she didn't have a prayer. It was time to try some more magic. She let go the sheet and sat down on the floor next to it, and the burden it contained, resting while she tried to think which spell her father would have used in this situation. What would he tell her to do?

_He'd probably tell me I've done everything all wrong from the beginning_. The thought made her smile in spite of her misery. Gods above, what wouldn't she give to have him alive and crabbing at her again?

Eventually, she decided that she would try to levitate him, just a bit, so she could move him along in the air instead of pulling. She knew that all the spells for moving things started with _mobili _-, but you were supposed to add on the word for what you wanted to move at the end - assuming you knew what that word was. Assuming you could remember your Latin lessons even as the man who had given them to you lay dead beside you. Assuming a lot of things.

Minerva sighed shakily and thought about it for a minute. "_Mobili, mobili_ - oh! I know. _Mobilicorpus_!" she said, pointing the wand.

It didn't work the first time, but when she tried again, he rose a little way off the ground. He looked so awful floating there with the sheet still tied around his face and trailing on the floor that she jumped up with renewed energy, determined to get him outside as quickly as possible. She'd have nightmares if she had to see him like that for long. Very likely she'd have them anyway, after a day like this one.

She guided him outside and over the hole she'd dug and lowered him almost to the bottom. Then she said "Finite incantatem" - and cringed when the spell ended suddenly and the body fell the last two inches into the dirt with a muffled thud. Everything about this was so utterly wrong and undignified, so unlike what her father would have wanted. The only good thing about it was that it was almost over.

Looking down upon him, she wished she'd thought to kiss him one last time before she'd put him in. Now she couldn't reach. Nor was she about to climb down in there with him. It seemed dreadful to just drop him in there and cover him up, though. There should be more. 

That gave her an idea, and she went back to the house, more slowly this time, and gathered up a few personal objects. A photograph of her mother, young and beautiful with her fair hair shining in the sunlight of a summer's day. The small green velvet box that held her mother's wedding ring - her father still wore his, even though his wife had been dead for six years. And her own beloved stuffed Puffskein, which she'd had ever since she was a baby. She took these things outside again and carefully laid them into the grave around him. That was better - he didn't look so lonely now.

What should come next? At her mother's funeral, she remembered, some people had gotten up and talked. She could do that.

"Um, I'm not sure what the right words for this are," she said aloud. "M-my father was - he was good to me. I loved him, and I'm going to miss him." Her voice broke again, and she went on in a rush, trying to get everything out before she lost control completely. "I'm sorry I didn't know he was so sick. I didn't know, I just didn't know!"

There didn't seem to be any more to say, and now she was crying too hard to go on anyway. She wiped her face ineffectually with the back of one hand, smearing a great swath of dirt across it in the process, and picked up the shovel to start filling in the hole. It was easily the worst part of the entire experience, seeing him disappear bit by bit until there was nothing but a mound of earth. When it was done, she dropped the shovel right where she stood, turned around and walked straight back to the house, through the dusk that was already beginning to fall. She couldn't bear to be at the graveside another second. Tomorrow would be soon enough to go and sit there.

Inside, she got the blankets from her own room and dragged them into her father's. Then, filthy and sweaty as she was, she climbed onto his bed, covered herself up and lay utterly still, breathing in the lingering scent of pipe smoke that still clung to the pillows. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that he was there, that he'd let her crawl in with him the way he sometimes did when she was ill or had bad dreams.

He hadn't always been attentive, or affectionate, but he'd protected and cared for her in his gruff way. Now that protection was gone. She felt very small, and very alone.

_It's not fair! I'm not old enough to be all by myself. I need my father. I want my father. Please, can't someone make him alive again? _

But not even magic could do that. And as her father's daughter, Minerva was smart enough to know it. She was on her own.

~~~


End file.
